


Beneath the Skin

by Heart_Seoul_Soshi



Category: Descendants (Disney Movies)
Genre: ABUSIVE Chad is here, Chad is here, F/F, Read at Your Own Risk, also with Evie, lemme rephrase, with Evie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-12
Updated: 2017-10-12
Packaged: 2019-01-16 09:27:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12339975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Heart_Seoul_Soshi/pseuds/Heart_Seoul_Soshi
Summary: Finally, in Auradon.  Evie's lifelong search for a prince ends in Chad Charming, and all should be well; her happily ever after.  But wicked ways lie beneath his skin, and before Evie knows it, she's unfortunately fallen in.





	Beneath the Skin

**Author's Note:**

> from an anonymous request on tumblr

Perfect princes.  
  
They were a dime a dozen in Auradon, and right away Evie had plucked one like a golden apple and treasured every bite. Mother never taught her that the way to a man’s heart was through his homework, but Evie was ingenious, she was always prone to finding other ways. And the looks on all the girls’ faces when a VK snatched up Chad Charming were a priceless bonus, in Evie’s opinion. If only the power of her magic mirror could reach to The Isle, if only her mother could see those looks for herself and know that Evie had done it.  
  
Her friends far from approved, but Evie didn’t mind, she wasn’t doing it for them. She was doing it for herself, her happily ever after, the one her mother trained her to grab with her own two hands. So Chad wasn’t the smartest, or the most concerned. He was a prince with a castle, that was all Evie needed.  
  
She was at her desk sewing when there was a single knock on the door, and the prince with a castle poked his head into the room.  
  
“Chad!” her face lit up. “Hi!”  
  
A grin from him, one that Evie called endearing and the other VKs always called creepy.  
  
“Heyyy, Evie,” he said.  
  
Instantly, his eyes went to Mal, kicked back on her bed with a textbook and not subtle about the scowl she was fixing him with.  
  
“Finished with my chemistry homework yet?” Chad asked, drawing his attention back to his girlfriend.  
  
Evie’s face went blank, her lips parting in a silent gasp.  
  
“Oh no! I got so busy sewing that I forgot!”   
  
Something like a grimace flashed across Chad’s features for a fraction of a second.  
  
“…No big deal,” he laughed, a little stiffly. “Just wondering.”  
  
He left with that, ducking back into the hallway and shutting the door.  
  
Evie didn’t have Mal on her side the next time Chad paid a visit.

He knocked and invited himself in, finding Evie hanging up new creations on her dress rack.   
  
“Chad? What a nice surprise,” she giggled, hanging the last dress and crossing the room to meet him.  
  
“You’ve sure been busy lately,” Chad noted, gazing around at the rolls of fabric and accessories dotting the dorm room. “Make time for my homework?”  
  
“I did, I’m  _almost_ done, I was just trying to finish these new outfits before my fittings this week, and—”  
  
“‘Almost’?” Chad repeated, frowning. “Evie, if I turn my homework in late, it’s ten points off.”  
  
Evie smiled, reaching out and lacing their fingers together.  
  
“Don’t worry, I’ll finish in time,” she laughed his concern off, totally confident in her abilities.  
  
“Evie, it’s not funny!” he pulled his hands free and gave her a little shove.  
  
She stumbled backwards, catching herself and saving her balance before she fell into the dress rack.  
  
She was startled, but not shaken, and left Chad with another promise that she’d finish his homework.  
  
One day, chemistry completely slipped her mind. Chad got ten points off. Chad came by when Mal was away in the art room. Evie didn’t catch herself this time, falling hard against the dresser and down to the floor.  
  
“I’m sorry,” she quickly apologized, wincing a little as she stood back up. “I just forgot!”   
  
“You forget a lot, lately,” Chad said with an exasperated sigh. “Do you know what my dad’s gonna say if he sees bad grades??”  
  
“He won’t say anything,” Evie assured him, fiercely shaking her head. “It won’t happen again.”  
  
Chad showed off his grin, grazing his hand across Evie’s cheek.  
  
“Thanks babe.”  
  
Evie’s mother trained her to be perfect. Evie proudly carried that mantle of perfection with her wherever she went, it—aside from homework—was one of her keys to a prince’s heart. One of the keys to  _her_  prince’s heart. But she wasn’t perfect enough when she didn’t show up to one of Chad’s Tourney games.  
  
“Did you really just stand me up like that??” he asked, again exasperated, after cornering her somewhere behind the school after the match that evening.  
  
Evie was so confused. She didn’t understand.  
  
“I had 4 Hearts things to work on, and you didn’t even get to play!” she tried to explain.  "You told me Coach moved you to second string until you got your grades up, and—"  
  
“The grades that bombed because  _you_  keep flaking out on my homework!”   
  
Evie huffed, clutching her Goodness book to her chest.  
  
“I have my own homework to do too, Chad. Plus my own clothing line, you know. I’m a little busy.”  
  
Chad’s eyebrow lifted.  
  
“Too busy for me, huh?  …Okay. I see how it is.”  
  
“…Chad?”  
  
Mal was already in her pajamas when Evie came through the door, and was just about to turn down the covers to crawl into bed for an early night with some movies.  
  
“…E, what happened to  _you_??” she demanded, dropping her pillow and striding over to her best friend.  
  
Evie’s hair was in total disarray, which in itself was cause enough for five-alarm panic without the addition of the red scratches littering her bare arms. She gave an embarrassed laugh, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.  
  
“I know, I’m a mess. I’m so glad no one saw me! I took the long way around the school, it’s so dark back there I ran right into a bush, didn’t even see it.”  
  
Mal frowned. Those words didn’t mesh right in her head. Evie, the picture of grace and perfection, running ungracefully into the foliage.  
  
Not being hit so hard that she’d fallen into it.  
  
The words didn’t mesh right in Mal’s head, but they accounted for the leaves she plucked out of Evie’s hair, so she let the matter drop. Just led her best friend into the bathroom to run some rubbing alcohol along the scratches.  
  
Chad joined the VKs at breakfast the next morning, a thing he occasionally did that earned him brownie points with no one but Evie.  
  
“Morning all,” he greeted the table, leaning over to hug Evie around the shoulders before he sat down next to her.  
  
“Hey, Chad,” Jay and Carlos groaned at the same time.  
  
Mal didn’t even spare him the courtesy of looking in his direction.  
  
All through breakfast they were the image of sickening innocence, holding hands, laughing together, Evie feeding him whipped cream from the tip of her expertly painted finger. It’s a good thing Mal wasn’t even looking in their direction. Didn’t matter if she was hanging around with the good crowd now, she would’ve thrown up right then and there.  Evie’s smiles were genuine, her laughs sincere. Everything was perfect.  
  
But she again wasn’t perfect enough when she playfully teased Chad in front of Ben and Audrey, making a little joke about his lingering bedhead and reaching up to ruffle his hair as she did so. Chad later taught her to never mess with his hair again.  
  
She wasn’t perfect enough when shaking fingers at a sewing machine ruined the jacket he’d entrusted her with fixing.  
  
She wasn’t perfect enough when Chad decided she’d been spending a little too much time studying with Doug.  
  
She wasn’t perfect enough, but she had the next best thing—acting like she was.  
  
It wasn’t until daybreak that she got the chance to see her newly purpling bruises, gazing at herself in the bathroom mirror. Dark colors were always her style; just not quite like this. Perfection with a makeup brush was the one thing she  _for sure_  knew she still had, so she got to work, making covering her bruises the newest part of her morning routine. She started with her arms, where Chad had gripped just a little too tight, planning to simply work her way up. Dabs of makeup here and there, all the way to her face. Simple. Bruise or no bruise, she practically did it everyday.  
  
Her heart leapt right into her throat when the door handle rattled and Mal strode right in.  
  
“E! Sorry! I thought you’d left for class al…Evie, what the  _hell_ is that?”  
  
Evie’s fingers shook again, stealing her last desperate cling to perfection away from her as the makeup brush fell from her hand and clattered onto the counter.  
  
Mal came in closer, meadow-colored eyes narrowed as she peered at Evie’s skin.  
  
“M-Mal!” Evie blurted, instinctively wrapping her arms around herself like it could hide anything. Like it could hide the terrible blue on her arms, near her neck, under her eye and on her cheek.  
  
Mal was no Evie, but that didn’t make her an idiot.  
  
“…What the  _hell_??!” she repeated, her voice raising in a way that made Evie wince out of habit.  
  
“Mal, I can explain,” Evie raised her hands like she was surrendering.  
  
“Explain what?? Evie, for the love of—!!”  
  
Mal’s clearly building rage contradicted the gentle way her fingers reached out and touched the black ring under Evie’s left eye. Just ghosting over the bruised skin, not enough to leave any trace of pain. Evie remembered when Chad used to touch her like that.  
  
“It’s fine, M,” Evie breathed.  
  
“Oh, it’s fine, E? It’s fine?? In what universe does the Evie that I know think this is fine?!”  
  
Evie lightly nudged Mal’s hand away from her face.  
  
“He’s a prince, Mal. How bad can he be?”  
  
“…How bad can he be,” Mal stepped away and repeated Evie’s words back to her once more. “…Okay. I see how it is.”  
  
Evie’s entire body flinched, recalling the last time she’d heard those exact words. But no hand came her way, no striking palm or closed fist. Mal just nodded imperceptibly to herself, stepping back some more and turning around to the door.  
  
“Thank you for understanding,” Evie quickly and softly said, feeling around for her makeup brush but not taking her eyes off Mal.  
  
Mal just left. Opened the door and vanished. She never said anything about understanding.  
  
At Jay and Carlos’ door she for a split-second thought she might end up with bruises herself, the way her knuckles rapped sharply at the wood. Carlos yanked the door open under her insistence, toothbrush stuck firmly in his mouth. Jay sat up in bed, pushing long hair out of his face.  
  
“Get dressed,” Mal barked from the doorway. “Find Chad.”  
  
Carlos mumbled Chad’s name with a question mark around a mouthful of toothpaste.  
  
“Mal, what’s up?” Jay asked.  
  
“I’ll tell you in a little bit. Just find him. Make sure he doesn’t leave your sight…Chad’s going to play a little hooky today.”

* * *

The door opened with a slam and Evie stormed in, a bit too much makeup on her face but practically indiscernible to any eye but her own.  
  
“Where is he??” she demanded.  
  
Mal stood over the desk, not reacting in the slightest when the door slammed open or when it slammed closed, just flipping furiously through her spellbook.  
  
“Why?” she asked, nonplussed.  
  
“You know why! He wasn’t in class at all today! Lonnie and Audrey tell me they saw the boys heading for his dorm room this morning! Mal, what did you do??”  
  
“Nothing. Much. Yet.”  
  
“Mal!”  
  
She slammed her book shut, clutching it in one hand as she turned to face Evie.  
  
“What I’ve done is nothing compared to what I’m  _going_ to do,” she coldly promised.  
  
“M! You can’t go after him just because he—”  
  
“'Just because’?” Mal interrupted, eyes hardening like jade. “'Just because’. Just because what, E? Just because he hits you? Smacks the hell out of you? You call that a ‘just because’?”  
  
Evie struggled to find something to do with her hands, curling and uncurling her fingers, threading them together, grabbing at her wrists.  
  
“Chad isn’t like that  _all_ the time, Mal. Only when I—”  
  
“Only when he decides you haven’t been good enough. Who the hell is he to make that decision, Evie?”  
  
Evie held her head high.  
  
“A prince,” she said firmly. “I won his heart fair and square, and I intend to keep it. He’s what I’ve always wanted, and I—”  
  
“He’s what your looney mother always wanted,” Mal again interrupted. “And congratulations, she got him. But I am not going to sit here and let  _you_  have him, E.”  
  
Mal strode forward, spellbook tightly in hand, eyes suddenly flashing a mystic, emerald green. Evie saw that all-too-familiar color and gasped, rushing in front of her best friend’s path and putting her hands on her shoulders, trying to hold her back.  
  
“Mal, no!” she yelled.  
  
“Move, Evie!!”  
  
Evie pushed her back.  
  
“No! I’m not going to let you go all Isle on Chad over this!”  
  
Mal sidestepped her on the way to the door, but Evie just repositioned herself, fighting her away.  
  
“Mal! Please! You can’t hurt him, I know that he loves me! And I love him!”  
  
Mal stopped, and in a surprising move, threw her spellbook onto the floor. She took Evie by the hand and rubbed the makeup off her arm where she knew the bruise was hiding, watching the dark spot come to life.  
  
“This is not love, Evie, okay?!” Mal yelled, lifting Evie’s arm and pointing out the one of many bruises.  " _This_ is love!“  
  
In spite of her anger, her glowing eyes, Mal took Evie’s face in her hands with such a gentleness and passionately pressed her lips to hers. Evie didn’t even have a chance to think of how such gentleness and passion never followed Chad’s anger or glowing eyes; in fact, she couldn’t really think much of anything. Her head swam, but when Mal started to pull away, Evie wouldn’t let her, capturing her lips for herself as Mal glided a thumb back and forth across her cheek. The pressure there did sting a bit over another one of Evie’s hidden bruises, but she said nothing. Did nothing. Felt  _everything_.  
  
Heard the door opening without a knock.  
  
Somehow sensed Chad’s presence.   
  
“Evie?”  
  
With a hand on Mal’s chest Evie broke their kiss and whirled around, finding a rather-disheveled looking Chad in the doorway. Mal’s move was instant, positioning herself protectively in front of Evie.  
  
“Slippery little rat, aren’t you?” the magic emerald that had disappeared from her gaze with the kiss flared to life again.  "How did you get away from Jay and Carlos?“  
  
“Jay and Carlos…” Evie whispered to herself, taking Chad’s disarray into account and suddenly getting not-too-farfetched mental images of him tied to a chair and gagged.  
  
Mal moved away from Evie for just the single second it took her to retrieve her spellbook from the floor.  
  
“Actually, you know what? Nevermind. I don’t give a damn how you escaped,” Mal started flipping through the pages again.  
  
Taking advantage of Mal’s distractedness, Chad stayed in the doorway and looked to his girlfriend.  
  
“Evie…you  _kissed_ her?” Eyes wide and innocent, hurt. Tone distraught. Tugging at Evie’s heart.  
  
“Chad, no, she kissed me. I just…I-I…”  
  
Why was Evie’s voice shaking? Afraid of losing Chad?  
  
Or just afraid  _of_ Chad?  
  
“…How could you do this to me?” the young royal went on. What seemed to be a sudden, heavy sadness pulled down his features. “After everything we had together? What, you don’t love me anymore?”  
  
“Chad, I—”  
  
“Get out,” Mal took a single step forward towards Chad.  
  
“Mal…” Evie squeezed her best friend’s shoulder from behind, her voice faint. Did she really want Mal to do this?  
  
“Mal, listen, I don’t know what made you think otherwise, but Evie is my girl.  You can’t just come between us and—”  
  
“Get. Out,” the girl’s eyes seemed to glare even brighter.  
  
Chad fully turned the heartbroken act on her, puppydog eyes and all.  
  
“Mal, come on,” he pleaded.  
  
A sad smile. A charming smile.  
  
“She’s my girl. You know I love her.”  
  
Mal was on him so fast that not one of them, herself included, realized it had happened. Fist around his shirt collar, yanking him down to her eye level with a hard and painful tug that may very well have left a red ring around his neck.  
  
“If you  _ever_  come near Evie again, I take a page out of her mother’s book and find a new home for your heart inside a box. This is over. You’re over. Get the picture?”  
  
Chad trembling in her grip was the only agreement she needed, and his legs seemed to give out when she let him go, falling on his butt in the hallway and having the door slammed right in his face. Mal turned around with a deep sigh and saw Evie trembling too, for entirely different reasons.  
  
“…Mal, how  _could you_??” Evie’s eyes shone wetly.  "You just…that was my boyfriend! He was my Prince Charming!“  
  
Evie found her way to her bed and collapsed onto it, burying her face in her hands as tears burned. For a moment, there was nothing, and then, there was Mal taking a seat beside her.  
  
”…You  _do not_  need a Prince Charming, Evie. Not even a real one. Not one who sweeps you off your feet, treats you like a treasure, sees you as a princess and makes you feel like one every single day. You have  _you_. And that’s all you need.“  
  
Mal took Evie’s hands, gently pulling them away from her face so they could look into each other’s eyes. Evie’s were red and watery. Mal’s were cool, and calm, and back to normal.  
  
"Your mother was a liar, E. No one else is your happily ever after, you are your own happily ever after.”  
  
“How??” Evie questioned, pulling a hand free to wipe at her eyes. “Mal, who am I without a prince??”  
  
It was honestly a little jarring, how Mal’s rage had segued into the utmost softness so, so quickly.  
  
“You’re Evie of The Isle. A girl with the strongest heart I’ve ever seen, a heart that survived the horrors of your childhood and still came out completely intact. You’re a genius, a genius with passion, out here following your dreams and actually working for them, not just wishing on a star. You are clever, and beautiful, with amazing friends and a family of VKs.”  
  
“…And you?” Evie sniffed, feeling the tingle of Mal’s kiss coming to life on her lips.  
  
Mal’s hand was there again, cupping her cheek, thumb sliding over bruised skin.  
  
“…I love you, Evie,” Mal whispered. “I have for a while. But I’m not telling you to hear you say it back. I’m telling you so that you know. So that you don’t ever go running off into the arms of Chad Charming or anyone like him ever again.”  
  
“And what about running off into your arms?”  
  
“I meant what I said. You don’t need anyone by your side to make yourself complete. That includes me.”  
  
“Mal…you know that isn’t true,” Evie closed her eyes and leaned into Mal’s warm touch. “I always need you.”  
  
“No, you don’t,” Mal insisted. “You’re enough, all on your own.”  
  
Evie opened her eyes, put her own hand over Mal’s.  
  
“Well…what if I feel like I might want you?” her voice was just a step above a whisper.  
  
Mal honestly wasn’t expecting that. It took her a moment to respond, but then she leaned in, kissing just beneath Evie’s left eye and over another masquerading bruise.  
  
“…If you really want me, E, then you can have me. But we take this slow. We get that asshole out of your head and out of your heart first, we get these bruises healed…the ones both outside and in,” Mal said.  "…Not just Chad, but your mom was swimming around your head too. Has been for entirely too long. This is going to take a while, Evie.“  
  
The bruises on Evie’s skin seemed to flare to life at Mal’s words, she felt them in twinges and pangs even when they weren’t being touched. It made her squeeze Mal’s hand even tighter.  
  
"Will you…will you be with me?”   
  
“You know I will.”  
  
“…Then maybe I can put this behind me.”  
  
Little kisses all over from Mal, at her bruises, at her cheek, at her lips. Oh, how Evie’s heart longed for the ones at her lips.  
  
“I know you can, E. I know you can.”


End file.
